Iraq war

This week, several of our favorite TV clips were infused with political undertones. Betty White prepared to run for the presidency on the double entendre ticket, while Bill O'Reilly wouldn't high five Letterman after admitting he was wrong about the Iraq War. Hank Williams Jr. went on 'The View' to try to explain himself after getting sacked from 'Monday Night Football,' but all that came out was jibberish.

LL Cool J dropped some knowledge in a BET Awards acceptance speech, in what proved to be the high-point of the week for Blackberry. And thankfully, Simon Cowell dumbed it all down by marveling at Wendy Williams' boobs.

Check out the clips after the jump and vote for your favorite in our weekly poll.

"It's shocking," Jon Stewart says. It certainly is. On the new 'Daily Show' (weeknights, 11PM ET on Comedy Central), Jon welcomes retired general Hugh Shelton as his guest. Shelton is the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he has written a new memoir -- in which he makes startling allegations about U.S. military conduct.

General Shelton alleges that a cabinet member in the Clinton administration was willing to kill a U.S. pilot to provoke war with Saddam Hussein and Iraq. The general states that in 1997, airmen were flying over Iraq each day, and were facing ground artillery fire from Iraqi forces.

A Clinton aide then came up with this "clever" plan: "Fly one of our [aircraft] low enough so that Saddam could actually shoot it down." Once the plane and the pilot were shot down, the U.S. would have an excuse to attack Iraq.

In celebration of the end of combat operations in Iraq, Stephen Colbert filled his studio with military personnel and offered them beer (domestic, of course) and American munchies, e.g., hot dogs. But that wasn't all 'The Colbert Report' (weeknights, 11:30PM ET on COM) had in store for the troops.

The "hot dog guy" was none other than Vice President Joe Biden. "Read your Constitution, man," said Biden. Giving hot dogs to "returning warriors" is one of his constitutional duties, he explained.

Former Army Ranger captain Nate Self is a highly-decorated war hero. He has served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo. But even the knowledge of his own heroism wasn't enough to prevent Nate from wanting to kill himself. On 'The Huckabee Show' (weekends, 8PM ET on Fox News), Self described a mission in Afghanistan which traumatized him such an extent that he wanted to die.

Captain Self was sent to rescue a missing-in-action Navy SEAL. In the course of this operation, Nate ended up fighting against enemy soldiers from before dawn until after dusk. Eventually, he located the SEAL -- but the man was already dead. Still, Ranger Self brought the SEAL's body back. However, Nate lost six of his own men in the course of the operation.

Rocker, hunter, and conservative political activist Ted Nugent appeared on the new 'Lopez Tonight' (weeknights, 11PM ET on TBS). While he was on the show, "The Nuge" took some time out to advocate for his strong anti-drug stance. Nugent said that he never did drugs and that he doesn't want to ever do them.*

Cool. But luckily, or unluckily, the singer managed to sound plenty insane without taking any controlled substances.

During his interview with George Lopez, Nugent screamed, cursed, repeated the same phrases over and over, and gave the camera the finger. Neat! " ... You sound like you're on drugs!" host Lopez said.

Balloons fall -- and Stephen yells, and lifts his arms in victory. The combat phase of the Iraq War is officially over! And now that it is over, Colbert remembers to give credit where credit is due. And the person who deserves all the credit? President George W. Bush.

Rachel Maddow has long been an opponent of the Iraq War. On the 'The Rachel Maddow Show' (weeknights, 9PM ET on MSNBC) she used the occasion of the last U.S. combat troops leaving Iraq to sum up her feelings on the situation:

"What I feel most acutely is the chasm between what humans are asked to do, what humans are put through, and the politics that puts them here," Maddow said, reporting from Baghdad. "Wars start for all sorts of reasons, some deserved ,some truthful, and some not deserved and not truthful. But wars end like this ... with a political settlement."

"4,415 American fatalities in this war, tens of thousands of Americans wounded," she continued. "The human cost that has been borne by the people who have been here -- the chasm between that and the grounds on which we made political decisions, some of which, looking back on them, feel so cheap and awful when we see the human toll that they caused -- that's what I feel the most acutely."

The time and nation that Stephen Colbert couldn't reveal where he is taking his show has been revealed. And because elite Army ninjas have not sneaked into his studio and whisked him away to an interrogation room for breaking the military code of silence, it's been confirmed by the network.

Stephen Colbert is taking his Colbert Report to Baghdad for the troops next week. The network claims this is the first time the USO has brought a television show into a combat area for a week of shows, if you don't count, say, the news.

Colbert has landed in Baghdad and underwent some basic military training to prepare for his visit to the region at Camp Victory, the former home of Saddam Hussein's Al-Faw Palace. That alone should provide hours of hilarious material for the show. But there's more going on than just producing something to keep you entertained during your post-work Kraft dinner.

(S01E23) At the beginning of the episode, Justin says, "Life is what happens in between big sets." He is talking about surfing, and also the past year and everything that has happened. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not that is true, profound, or whether, as Justin said, it just sounded poetic in his head. And I think I'm going to have to go with poetic in Justin's head. Just like I think this episode was probably so much better in the writers' heads. I have to admit, I am a little disappointed. I am struggling with a huge bias here though: I HATE slapstick. Hate it. And so whenever this show employs it, I just kind of shut down and zone out. Last week was a brilliant, beautiful episode, and I wish they had just stopped with that. In fact, in my mind, last week's episode is just going to be the season finale, and we'll just pretend this one didn't happen, shall we?

With the TV news networks dedicating major portions of their broadcasts this week to the fourth anniversary of the beginning of the war in Iraq, a New York TimesTV critic says that the war, as well as issues related to terrorism and torture, have become major themes on American television, ranging from dramas like 24, to comedies like Saturday Night Live.

"Television shows process news events much faster than ever before but not much more directly than they did at the time of Hogan's Heroes, M*A*S*H or China Beach," critic Alessandra Stanley wrote, noting that a failed FX program, Over There about soldiers in Iraq "turned a war into entertainment as it was still being fought."

Bill Maher appeared at the TCA to tease the upcoming fifth season of Real Time with Bill Maher (that's already four Bill Maher mentions between the headline and this -- I hope the check's in the mail). He let us know that he wishes (hopes?) that he could get Bill or Hillary Clinton as a guest, and that they have trouble getting a lot of conservatives to appear because, "most of them are in bed by 8PM on a Friday night, getting ready for church."

"Don with the Wind": Donald Rumsfeld finally left with one last annoying good-bye. During an interview with Sean Hannity, he said that he has "skimmed" the new Iraq Study Group Report. Wow. As if that wasn't infuriating enough, all of Rummy's "golly"s and "gee"s have really been pissing off Jon... enough to call for a meeting at Camera Three. Jon actually seemed genuinely angry, especially when he started shouting. It was... pretty unsettling for, like, two seconds. Rummy also said that Iraq isn't all that bad at the moment because things look okay from the air.